Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Jason Rock: "sometimes the targets were basically people that abused of the system."

Most people don't pay close enough attention to catch the constantly-expiring points/offers at the right times, I'd guess at least 90% of issued points go unused, and the unused percent is surely increasing with every store closure that leaves former customers with no local store to use the points at.

Maybe SHC shouldn't have been so generous with points, but people who manage to actually use what SHC chose to give them isn't 'abusing the system'. The only ones 'abusing the system' are the rare ones who made multiple fake accounts or stole other people's points.

"We know surprise points/SYW coupons redeemed are charged against a store, but on what line item? Shouldn't they be charged as advertising, since actual print and television ads have been cut to the bone?"

I was told years ago that SYW points usage does come out of the advertising budget, FWIW.

@4otm It was as you said awaring the customers about the SYW program, but it really bombed because sometimes the targets were basically people that abused of the system. I hated when this lady came to my department and would waste my time she would show me her phone and would say look I got free points and I want to use them I was sure. I would be wasting my time looking for certain products that would basically be free or close to free. She was getting lots of free points and free stuff.

Sears should of rewarded more their loyal customers that actually bought things and kept pumping the company. Now Sears has really lost customers I knew of a customer that said he had spent thousands of dollars each year with the company, an issue happened and manager didn't want to fix the issue, customer said he would never come back and honestly never saw that customer again. I think what has hurt my store the most how managers arent trying to keep golden eggs basically seeing them as normal customers when some are actually heavy spenders and if an issue happens a manager should fix the issue they can see how much they shopped if they can see their SYW.

Also the lady that would only come for free things never saw her again I assume because she wasnt getting no more free points.

Since it will tick off Sears, I now am checking everyone's SYW points during every transaction. Customer service is not dead with me, as it is with the corporation as a whole.

This is PsrW8Km-vqa,

When syw was new we were probably told to make sure people knew they were getting points so that more people knew about it's existence. I think the goal was simply to let everyone know it was there to try to get more people signing up and more people into the stores. Now it seems the higher ups realize the losses aren't worth the potential gain in customers which is why you see the shift in behavior. In my opinion it sounds somewhat reasonable especially compared to the other stuff we had going in in the past. New business concepts operating at a loss at the beginning is pretty much standard for everything. Now they're going back to how most other stores handle things like syw

Also if you know you have something that saves you a significant amount of money I don't see why you wouldn't keep up with that kind of thing yourself. I know I would.

I agree when was the last time any store had an update. Not including the stores Eddie sold to himself, those stores were completely redone, by the way paid for by sears, so the stores that were redone are sitting on the bills , ready for BK to happen , can't believe Eddie is getting away with this

What? Shop your way was supposed to save the company. It was eddies baby and how genius. Customers would forget about the dilapidated stores, high prices etc, and come out in droves. I remember when it first came out and customers got free k ching items. How much total the company has lost from this awesome program ie data mining scam. Makes me wonder what would have happened if eddie instead invested in the stores and customer service. Would it have been better?

While I realize it makes sense to the bottom line and it's odd they don't seem to have figured that out until now, it's kind of annoying to up and change this after employees have been harassed all this time to be sure we're always asking. And wtf... how does this affect the SYW percentage at checkout? Are they going to stop measuring that?

I hope at least as employees we can still automatically do it for each other. After all... points that equal pocket change are our stupid discount anymore. sigh

We were told this also but they also said we had to many people redeeming points, I guess they are tracking all the point redemptions. However when people did get the points to redeem, they were happier and said they would be back. It seems like Sears is shooting itself in the foot by stopping us from asking if customers if they want to use their points.

On the other hand, if I’m buying something that pays 100% back in points or even50% and you use my points then you screwed me.

Example, I buy a bunch of craftsman stuff currently at 50% back in points at kmart and sell it all to my coworkers for 25% less than what I paid, I still am ahead of the game with the points... assuming I find stuff worth buying (toilet paper, paper towel etc comes to mind....)

Just saying.

Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

I dislike when cashiers fail to ask about my points. Walgreens is pretty good about it and I shop there more often due to the courtesy/helpfulnesd of the clerks.

I will keep on suggesting members check their points.

Well if these stores don't want to give these discount, WHY THE F--- HAVE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

you get this B-S story from the leaders ... " we want their next purchase to be a WOW experience " if they loose their points then its a bummer because they cant buy anything with lost points. then sears wins they got you in the store then your points are gone ... ah to bad mister customer you lose now pay full price

@ppw I know we had ads that said want free cash LOL. I think the point though is most for store. I have heard managers say that if a customer pays with points they are at a loss so it makes sense for the actual store not having them pay with points.

Then why the f--- do we put up a banner saying text for free cash?

The last post makes a good point. When I worked at a local grocery store we had senior discount day once a month. Each register had a barcode to scan if the customer mentioned the senior discount. The deal was that the customer had to mention it, the cashier could not remind them or just scan it, otherwise it was call unauthorized discounting. some people got fired when a manger witnessed this happening

To be fair most places don't tell their workers to tell people about special offers and things that save them money. It's usually the customers responsible to find and keep up with those things.

I actually thought it was kinda odd to TELL workers to make sure their customers knew they had points and to use those points...you're literally costing yourself money for no reason. Especially if the member didn't know they had them.

Kind of silly as all points are automatically shown on both Sears.com and Kmart.com when a member logs in. I don't think the company is trying to hide anything when they clearly post SYW points when a member logs in to each site.

We know the accounting method charges the stores as if the points and coupons were cash.

SOME STORE MANAGERS ARE REFUSING TO ACCEPT ANY COUPONS, printed out or shown on the phone, for this reason. But they have no choice to accept preloaded coupons, which come off transactions automatically.

Some questions:

Are points earned on a transaction charged to the store when the transaction is completed? What about when they are redeemed? In other words, are stores hit twice for points earned and points redeemed?

We know surprise points/SYW coupons redeemed are charged against a store, but on what line item? Shouldn't they be charged as advertising, since actual print and television ads have been cut to the bone?

Yup, this is happening at Kmart as well. It is so f---ing dumb. They don't want people to use points, yet they can't get rid of the point system because the moment they do, they'll lose a sh-- ton of customers. So they are damned either way.

Business units pay a handy amount to SYW to administer the price discount promotions.

If one were to do a tally of what goes out and what comes back in sales, it would be easy to recognize this is a venue that drains unnecessary funds from operating income.

SYW is a forced discount mechanism that does not trickle to average Sears customer that doesn't log in to check surprise points every week. Yet, Sears likely continues to pay servicing fees for SYW to issue points that are never used.

Once again a very smart idea to extract value from a dying retail company.

Someone should get business insider to do a news piece on this. They'd love to post that Sears cannot afford to pay people out their points anymore.